Hushing the hysteria over in-flight cellphone calls

Back in the early 1980s, my wife worked for a New York capital investment firm that was considering buying a piece of a company placing air-to-ground telephone systems on commercial airplanes. To test the service, her bosses put her on a plane to Las Vegas so she could call them, me and anyone else she cared to speak to while in flight. (This was the early '80s; companies did stuff like that back then.)

That's the last time she's ever made a telephone call from a plane. And the last time I've ever received one.

Keep that in mind as the Internet continues obsessing over the possible lifting of the Federal Communications Commission's 20-year-old prohibition on in-flight calls using cellphones. A report recommending an end to the ban is expected to be sent to FCC Commissioners perhaps as early as this week, after which the proposal will be opened to public comment.

Hence the social media gnashing of teeth over the possibility that commercial planes will soon become high-flying corporate boardrooms, teenage slumber parties or both.

Don't get your knickers in a twist. It ain't gonna happen.

While Facebook posts such as, “As if crying babies (weren't) bad enough” and “NOOOOooooooo!” are not surprising, even business reporters who should know better are writing nonsense like, “Air travel is unpleasant enough these days. The opportunity to go cell-free for an hour or two is one of the few perks. Please, FCC and airlines: Make the right call on this one.”

One business travel expert who does know better recently put such unfounded fears to rest. In fact, air travelers should embrace this change, contends Joe Brancatelli, who writes a business travel column for The Business Journals.

Should the FCC lift the ban, it'll be up to individual airlines to decide whether to allow voice calling. With public sentiment so vociferously against it, Delta already has said it won't permit calls. Even if some carriers do, history suggests there won't be a sudden surge in in-flight calling.

Those air-to-ground telephones my wife once tested? They were so unpopular, AT&T dropped its service in 2002 and Verizon killed its in 2006, according to Brancatelli.

And where flyers are still able to make in-flight cellphone calls — including most international flights to and from the United States — virtually no one uses them.

In his column, Brancatelli quotes a Federal Aviation Administration study that found international in-flight cellphone usage rates ranging from 2 percent per flight segment in France to 0.3 percent in Brazil. And those calls averaged only two minutes in length.

In other words, people don't seem to enjoy talking on the phone while flying.

So why should flyers be rooting for the FCC to end the prohibition?

For the data.

“That's what this is all about,” Brancatelli said. As long as the FCC bans in-flight cellphone calls, he said, flyers also cannot use their mobile devices to get texts, access email or stream Netflix movies.

Still, if the FCC steps aside, doing any of these things will cost you.

That's because, at 30,000 feet, most phones cannot communicate with cellphone towers down on the ground. So you'll have to go through the airplane's onboard Internet connection, putting you at the mercy of the same folks who charge fees for everything from checked baggage to preferred seating to any food more filling than a cup of Coke and bag of nuts.

In other words, it'll probably cost you so much to get texts, access email or stream movies, most of us still will wait until after the plane lands.

Blessed silence (but for those crying babies and roaring engines) will prevail again.

Richard Marini is a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News. He has been with the paper since 2000. Prior to that he was a full-time freelance writer, contributing to publications as varied as Us, Cooking Light, Frequent Flyer, Bottom Line/Health and many others. Reader's Digest once sent him to Alaska for a week.